In a death pact with his wife

Houdini promised to reach out from the other side.
Whenever I read this it reminds me
how you never promised anything of the kind. How,
looking over the vista of your plaid shirt,

on a Tuesday- a cataract of anger
in the morning- you walked on
into an auxiliary world of silence where pacts

are not made (as far as I know). The time
has passed for that. The time has passed
you into the annals of fathers, of stepfathers that,

looking over the vistas of their shoulders,
do not ever make it home. How empty the Aprils
are, left, as we are, without your grave

for a home. Littered are the waters,
littered are the waters at the feet
of mountains in Tennessee. If I were a child

of Appalachia, that last leaf-bed where we left you,
I would sing this to you, even now. I would stretch
myself into the moon there- so I could rise

higher than the jaggy-heads of cliffs and
illuminate every bit of your bone.

Author's Note

2018

Reviews

[Gee]

Good afternoon. Can relate to this through my feelings( sometimes) of abandonment. My father, and that term I use very lightly, upped sticks and left mum with 5 very young kids, no money, and little or no hope of anything but a constant struggle to clothe and feed us all. On the up side I have been to my daughter everything I would have wished in the man that should have raised us. I actually think I am a better father for it:)
Hope you are well and have mince pies and beers readied for Santa and his heavily antlered crew.

[Eilis]

Hi, Gee. Thank you for sharing how you relate to this. My dad was the same and then my stepfather (the man in this poem) died of an overdose when I was a child and that has had a big impact on me as well. With addicts there seem to be two people inside one person and they can be loving but also sometimes their behavior can feel inhumane. Some things I think we only overcome through living our own lives differently, like you say about your own journey as a father. Your daughter is lucky. Thanks for your comment. I hope you and your family have a happy Christmas there.

[SkinlessFrank]

I like the way this piece plays with the interplay of abandonment, anger, and passing time. You remind us that we never can leave behind the way that this insult permeates our psyches. And the part about “littered waters” makes us realize that events like this forever pollute our ways of seeing things. There is also that entrenched anger in the allusion to Houdini’s promise, and the loss to worlds where silence reigns and the mad impossible realisation of stretching that distance. In the end we are left with not much more than a bundle of crazy notions about closure.

[Eilis]

Hi, thanks for your comments. It seems the loss of someone important creates all of these memory touch points and as time passes the person (in memory) becomes these things. Like a puzzle. And the feelings become almost like myth. Personal myth. The things that make us. The young me believed in closure, and in some ways I feel expecting that is harmful in its own way because the healing process is so complex. The event in the poem happened more than thirty years ago but still has this power like it was yesterday. Understanding the processes of healing seems to be the road toward healing itself. Thanks for reading.

[Ern M. Yoshimoto]

a triste and mournful piece. there is so much regret but there's also an awareness of beauty. this piece is very well balanced, the moods contrast but complement each other. so many lines i just loved:
Littered are the waters,
littered are the waters at the feet
of mountains in Tennessee

I would stretch
myself into the moon there- so I could rise

you walked on
into an auxiliary world of silence where pacts
are not made

it's magnificent work. it is layered, complex, sometimes tangential but keeping it in a tightly wound rhythm and unique voice.

[Eilis]

Hi, Ern. Thanks for reading and your kind words on the poem. I’m glad the contrasts/layers came through for you.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

What an amazing piece, Eilis.
And I related immediately to this. My mom's situation with her distant Father...
How she grew to resent him so much after she lost her mom and then got this awful stepmom who treated her so badly...and he did nothing, never stood up for her one bit....she didn't even go to his funeral she was so bitter.
And I can hear my mother saying the last 4 lines of this with a bitter smile.

j.

[Eilis]

Thanks so much, Jacob. Our relationships with our parents can be so strange and painful. It takes a long time to be able to accept what has happened and even longer to recognize that they were often just scared, young, inexperienced people who had no more idea than us what to do. But those wounds can be so deep and seem unforgivable. I appreciate you sharing how you related to this.

[John the Baptist]

A haunting, well worded piece here. I perceive both mourning and anger in it. The man was loved, but there seems to be an implied accusation of desertion in these words.

[Eilis]

Thank you, John. The complexity of experience, yes. That duality.

[Paul in the Buff]

Cuts deep.

I feel betrayal. I feel abandonment. I feel there was an obituary some were not upset to read.

But feelings aren't always fact...

[Eilis]

Thanks for your visit, Paul. So many things in life are not just the one thing but a whole basket of mixed experiences. The good and the bad intertwined. Feelings do sometimes define the way we choose to live and carry much weight.

[Paul in the Buff]

Not to say feelings aren't important or cannot carry weight, they're just not always accurate, even if they're valid.

My comment is about my feelings regarding your poem. What I feel in reading it might not be the feelings you intended in writing it, or the feelings you put into it.

I have been known to be incorrect in my observations. :)

[Eilis]

Your comment was great, sorry if it seemed I didn’t think so. It’s been a bad mind week for me and half the time I have no idea what to say about anything and feel off-kilter. Your observations were quite accurate. Thank you for sharing them

[Paul in the Buff]

Oh, I took no offense to your response. Just wanted to make sure my review was understood. Sometimes online we write in ways that don't necessarily carry the full communication that spoken language, eye contact, and body language all work toward conveying. When I write, I write in my mind, and what is in my mind isn't always in the minds of others.

Sometimes, like the brain Igor retrieved in Young Frankenstein, I took think mine should be labeled "Abby Normal." :)

[Paul in the Buff]

And typos are my special language.

[Eilis]

Haha, I can relate, yes. It’s not always easy to say what we mean in the ways we truly mean them in these spaces, I agree. Thanks for clarifying your thoughts.

[Paul in the Buff]

Thank you for understanding!

[Pryde Foltz]

Wow ... you got me. The grief and love in this write are palpable. I am sorry. I am kind of at a loss for words. You packed so much emotion and power into this write. Wow.

[Eilis]

Thank you for your kind words, Pryde.

[—-]

As always, such a light touch to your words even when those touches are printed with sad, regretful and reflective moments
“I would sing this to you, even now. I would stretch myself into the moon there-“
I adore poetry that is simple in expression, yet so rich in ideas and beauty. So many creative turns in this piece, but I will daydream about this line for a while longer. Wonderful poetry

[Eilis]

Thank you so much. Such a kind and generous review. I’m glad you enjoyed the poem.